Heart of Stone
' |image= |series= |production=40513-460 |producer(s)= |story= |script=Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe |director=Alexander Singer |imdbref=tt0708546 |guests=Max Grodénchik as Rom, Aron Eisenberg as Nog, Majel Barrett as Computer voice, Salome Jens as Female Changeling |previous_production=Life Support |next_production=Destiny |episode=DS9 S03E14 |airdate=6 February 1995 |previous_release=(DS9) Life Support (Overall) Phage |next_release=(DS9) Destiny (Overall) The Cloud |story_date(s)=48521.5 (2371) |previous_story= Phage Life Support |next_story= The Cloud Phage }} =Summary= Kira and Odo chase a Maquis terrorist to a moon in the Cardassian badlands. Finding the wreckage of a ship, they begin searching some nearby caves - splitting up to complete the search more quickly. Soon Kira calls out for help. Odo returns to find her foot stuck in a rapidly growing crystal formation. lf the crystal keeps expanding at the present rate, it will completely cover her in only hours. With both communication and the transporter inhibited by the moon’s atmosphere, Odo attempts to shatter the crystal with an ultrasonic resonator. It doesn’t work. The crystal seems to be constantly changing. When the crystal encloses all but her chin, Kira tries to get Odo to leave. He refuses, saying that he can't because he loves her. Surprisingly, Kira returns Odo’s love, and he suddenly realizes that something is wrong. He knows Kira doesn’t love him. She would never say so just to make him feel better. He points a phaser at what looks like Kira encased in a pillar, and both morph into the Female Changeling, who staged the entire incident to discover Odo’s link to the “solids.” She hoped that Kira’s death would cause him to return to his race. Once again, Odo refuses. Just before leaving, the Changeling tells Odo where to find the real Kira. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Oversights # The episode begins with Kira and Odo coming back from Prophet's Landing—the Bajoran settlement nearest the Cardassian border. Odo's in a huff, answering Kira's attempts to make conversation with one-word answers or grunts. Finally she asks if something is bothering him. "What makes you say that?" Odo replies. Kira answers, stating that—for one thing—he hasn't said five words to her since they left Prophet's Landing. I think he did! Count em up. "What makes you say that?" Five words. (Hey, I don't write the dialogue, I just nitpick it!) Technically, Kira is referring to the lack of conversation before she asked the question. # I've said it before, I'll say it again. Obviously the Changeling in this episode has no trouble at all creating a humanoid face. Her "Odo - like" appearance at the end of the episode must be a concession to Odds more primitive skills. This could be how the Founders appear when they want members of other races to know they are dealing with Changelings. Changed Premises # Kira seems to have had a change of heart when it comes to her feelings about the Maquis. When she and Odo detect the Maquis vessel attacking a Lissepian supply ship, I really expected her to turn to the constable and say, "l don't see any Maquis ship. Do you?" After all, at the beginning of The Maquis, Part II, she gave Sisko an impassioned speech on the rights of the Maquis to defend themselves. She said she knew what they were going through. She said she knew the Cardassians couldn't be trusted. She must have changed her mind since then, because at the beginning of this episode she chases after the Maquis ship like it houses a criminal. Maybe it has something to do with the new peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia? Perhaps she knows that failing to persue the Maquis ship would result in her being charged with deriliction of duty, especially with Odo as a witness. # In this episode Rom fixes Quark's replicators in the bar. I guess Quark got tired of waiting for O'Brien's teams to handle the repairs around the bar so he palmed the maintenance responsibilities off on his hapless brother. In Babel Quark stole food from command-level replicators because his were broken and O'Brien couldn't spare anyone to fix them. Also in that episode, Odo says that Rom is an idiot—that he couldn't fix a straw that was bent. Maybe Quark’s repair requests kept getting put on the bottom of the repair schedule! Equipment Oddities # The stasis chamber that holds Kira at the end of the episode looks very similar to the one shown at the end of Vortex, but maybe everyone in the Gamma Quadrant buys them from Statis-Mart or something. Probably a standardised design. Nit Central # Keith Alan Morgan on Saturday, May 08, 1999 - 7:11 am: Nog refers to his bundle of gold-pressed latinum as simply latinum. Probably a vernacular-style shortening of the name. # Pretty dumb of Kira to suggest splitting up. They can cover more ground that way. # Why aren't Kira and Odo marking their trail so they don't get lost? The markers could get displaced. # Why are Kira and Odo even chasing after the guy in the caves? Don't you figure that sooner or later he will get thirsty or hungry and come back out? They probably assume he either has supplies with him, or there are some hidden in the caves. # 'Kira' is sitting fairly relaxed, when Odo finds her, then when Odo suggests slipping her foot out of her boot, she says that the crystal is pressing too hard. If the crystal were really pressing too hard so that the real Kira couldn't pull her foot out, wouldn't she at least be in some discomfort? Maybe it’s bearable at this point # Odo's name comes from Odo'ital, Cardassian for nothing. Cardassian terms were used on the items so that the Cardassian overseers knew what the Bajoran scientists were working on during the occupation. However, in the alternate universe, Bajor was not conquered by the Cardassians, it petitioned to join the Klingon/Cardassian alliance. So how did Odo's alternate self get to be called Odo? Odo’ital actually means Unknown Sample in Cardassian, so it would make sense for Odo's alternate self get to be called Odo, especially as the Klingon/Cardassian alliance would have even less knowledge about Odo’s origins and physiology then Bajor and the Federation in the prime universe. # John A. Lang on Saturday, November 01, 2003 - 10:21 pm: In an interview about "Heart of Stone", Nana Visitor said,"I hated that episode. That's all I can say, I hated it." I can't imagine why, it brought out Odo's affections for "the solids". BARA on Sunday, November 02, 2003 - 6:47 am: Nope, it was because her feet were nailed to the floor and she was trapped inside that rock for a whole working day even though she is claustrophobic. # Callie on Monday, April 12, 2004 - 6:28 pm: When the crystal gets up to Kira’s waist, she holds her arms out at her sides to avoid touching the crystal. That seems a really uncomfortable position to maintain for any length of time. If that had been me, I would have laced my fingers on top of my head. And it certainly seems that Kira couldn’t maintain that stance because when the crystal gets higher, her fingers are sticking out of the crystal in front of her face. ' The fingers on top of the head stance is also difficult to maintain for any length of time.' # Phil suggests in the Guide that, in order for the Changeling to know about kayaking and various other things that she really shouldn’t have known about, there must have been a Changeling infiltration on the station to learn these things. If that’s so, shouldn’t the Changeling also have known that the dumbest thing she should possibly have ‘Kira’ say to Odo was “I’m in love with you too”? The whole purpose of this exercise was to remove the one reason for Odo to stay with the Solids. However, if Odo hadn’t got suspicious and if ‘Kira’ had died, surely it would have been more likely that he would have stayed with the Solids because, if one humanoid could love a Changeling, Odo might have considered that it might just be possible that he could find love again in the future. Surely it would have made much more sense for ‘Kira’ to say in response to Odo’s declaration of love, “Ewww! You’ve got to be kidding! How could anyone love a puddle of goo!” That would have also made Odo suspicious, as he knows Kira would never react like that! Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine